Multilingual Education: Comparative Rhetoric Versus Linguistic Elitism and Assimilation by David Trotter - HTML preview

Appendix B

Interview on Bilingualism

conducted by

David W. Trotter

February, 1994

Subject: Leonore

Age: 23

Education: At time of interview: Was one quarter away from completing a BA at EWU in Social Work and Sociology

D: The first thing I just need to know is I need your full name; I need your name.

L: Okay. Leonore. O-Nore.

D: [Last name deleted for anonymity]?

L: [deleted].

D: How old are you?

L: Twenty-three.

D: Okay. Uh. Tell me a little about...You grew up in a bilingual family?

L: Uh-huh.

D: And tell me a little about that.

L: Um. Both my parents mainly spoke Spanish. Their native language was Spanish.

D: Where was this?

L: Central America?

D: Oh, you grew up in Central America?

L: Oh, well, we traveled a lot, so...um...I was born in California. And then, when I was about five, we moved to Germany, ‘cause my dad was in the military. And so, I learned another language, which I forgot, though. Um...Then...um...We lived there for about three years, and moved to Central America.

D: Where?

L: El Salvador.

D: Okay.

L: Then we moved...um...We lived there for about a year. Then we moved to...um...California again. And, I guess when I was really small, before we moved to Germany, we moved. We lived in Texas, in Corpus Christi, Texas. But I don’t remember that very much. Um. And then, we ended up here, in Washington.

D: How old were you when you came to Washington?

L: Um. I was in fifth grade, so probably like ten.

D: So by the time you were in fifth grade, you had lived in California, what part?

L: Los Angeles.

D: Okay. And Germany for three years.

L: Central America.

D: El Salvador. Back to California.

L: I moved also, Texas.

D: Texas. You came here when you, here being where, Spokane or...?

L: Oh, no. Lakewood.

D: Lakewood!

L: Tacoma. Hm. Hm.

D: I grew up in Parkland.

L: Oh!

D: A few years before you lived there. But, uh, do you remember? How did you...You said your parents spoke mainly Spanish?

L: Hm. Hm. They spoke to me in Spanish. And my grandfather lives with us, too.

D: Still?

L: No, um, not anymore, no. But he did all up until, um, I was in my sophomore year in high school. So he lived with us until then. Um. So he lived with us, and he spoke to me mainly in English, and both my parents spoke to me in Spanish.

D: How did he happen to be speaking English, and the next generation was primarily Spanish?

L: He is my, um, he’s my father’s, um, my real father’s step-dad.

D: Yeh.

L: But he just raised us, and so it's just like our, uh, biological grandfather. And he was Russian.

D: Oh.

L: He was Russian, but he never spoke to us in Russian. He spoke to us in English, ‘cause he was raised here in the United States.

D: So you grew up with English and Spanish...

L: Hm. Hm.

D: both at home?

L: Hm. Hm.

D: Did that ever cause any confusion for you?

L: Uh, no until we came back to the States. It never caused any confusion, confusion at all, um, in any of the schools. My classwork was average, just like every other kid. But when we went to Germany, I had acquired a third language. So when I came back to the States, um, because I was in a German school...They just put me into a German school, so I...It was just kinda like...

D: In Germany?

L: Yeh, in Germany. And so, I had to learn Germ...I had to learn the language in order to do well in school. So I guess I spoke it really well; my mom says I spoke it very fluently. um. And then I came back to the States, I remember that the teacher told my mom that I need to forget...Well, the tea...There was a counselor, a teacher, and a principle that came to our house one day. And they said, um, that it was causing problems for me at school, because I was forgetting words and I was putting in German words or Spanish words. In term of when I was talking, I would forget a word, and if it couldn’t come out immediately, then I would speak another word from a different language, the same word I was looking for but a different language. So, um, then my mom didn’t emphasize German any anymore, because she used to speak to me in German after...

D: She knew German?

L: After we learned it. Hm. Hm.

D: So she had learned it over there, too?

L: My whole family did. And, um, and when we learned it, it just kinda stuck with the family, but, ‘cause she didn’t want me to forget it. But then she quit speaking it to me, because of the fact that the principal of the school assumed that it was causing problems in school. But I think it only happened, I mean, from what I can remember, it only happened a couple of times, that you couldn’t, sometimes it's like the word's on the tip of your tongue, and I would just sit there and go, “What is the word?” But it was just, um, because I'd just recently arrived in the United States from Germany. So...

D: And you were how old at that time?

L: Mm. I was probably, um, I don't remember. I was in elementary school sometime.

D: So, growing up, you...and I asked if it was, if it caused any confusion. Did you switch back and forth between the languages, or did you use them each independently, or how did you use the languages growing up?

L: Um. At home, it was mainly Spanish, unless I was speaking with my grandfather, which was English. And then, in school and around the community, it was English, just complete English. Um. With my family, and it still is ‘til this day, we could go in my house with Spanish; my church was Spanish; everything I do is Spanish. But when I’m at school, at work, everywhere else it’s English. And it doesn’t cause any confusion. It’s just, um, it grew, it just, that’s how you were raised. You know. It’s like, if you spoke to your dad in English, you're not going to go and speak to him in Spanish. I don't know. It’s kinda like forcing...

D: Where did you...When do you remember realizing that you were using more than one language?

L: Um. Because I was like that, I got taught how to read and write in English in kindergarten. I remember, I wanted to learn how to do it in Spanish, and um, so by that time, I already knew that I had, that I had acquired two languages. But, um, I taught myself how to read it when I was in kindergarten. My mom bought, bought books from Central America, and she had them send us books, like, um, school books. And so, they sent us school books, and then I just taught it to myself, and my mom taught it to me. So. At the same time, I was pushing her to teach me how to tell time.

D: In Spanish?

L: Yeh. In Spanish and in English. That one was rough then. So, both of ‘em. Um. But, yeh, that's...I mean, it never, it doesn’t seem, it never seemed any, you know, to think about it, “Well, I know two languages.” It just kinda was like natural. I mean, I didn’t see myself as being different from other kids, because, I don't know, you know, for I knew, they could be speaking some other, some other language, um, at home, too.

D: Of course. But even at home, you spoke two languages...

L: Two.

D: And you knew which one to speak to whom?

L: Hm. Hm.

D: From the beginning, as far as you know?

L: Hm. Hm. Hm. Hm. Yeh, from the beginning, because of the fact that, um, my grandpa always spoke to me in English. So ever since I knew how to speak, it was, from my grandfather to me was English, from my parents to me was Spanish, and from my relatives to me was Spanish. So that's how I distinguished it from my family to my grandpa.

D: I lost what I was thinking.

L: Oh.

D: That might be just the point. Um. Well, your grandfather. You said he was reared in this country.

L: Hm. Hm.

D: Did he, does he have any accent? Did he have any accent?

L: Mm. No.

D: Not Russian? Not Spanish from being around Hispanics?

L: Nn. Nn. Nn. Nn. He, um, nowdays he can forget, um, he has forgotten a lot of his, um, Russian, a lot of the Russian. But, um, when he went to church, he went to a Russian church. Well, uh, we all went to an American church, but within the American church, there was different, um, there were different languages. So he went to the Russian portion of it, and we went to the Spanish portion. There was Russian, German, and Spanish and English.

D: This was in, oh this wasn’t in Germany?

L: No. This was here in the United States.

D: This was in the United States.

L: California. And so, um, I remember that nobody could tell he, he didn't have an accent, from what I heard other people talking, ‘cause I don't know to speak Germ, uh, Russian. So, um, so I couldn’t tell if he had an accent or not. But from what other people said, was that he was just, you know, they couldn’t believe that he was raised here, due to the fact that he had no accent.

D: No Anglo accent for his Russian?

L: Hm. Hm. Yeh. And no, uh, Russian accent when he spoke English.

D: How's your Spanish?

L: Mm. Same as my English. People, um, they, when I meet them, and if I meet them in like my family setting, say some one's having, um, then, um, some people have even asked me if I, if I know how to speak English, because of the fact that I don’t have an accent, an English accent when I’m speaking Spanish. Um. Some of the times, though, I forget, like, I’ll forget a word type thing. But I won't substitute. I just sit there and try to think about it. And I know how to read it and write it and speak it, obviously. And so, it just, it just comes natural.

D: You say you won’t substitute a word from another language?

L: Nn. Nn.

D: You used to.

L: Yeh, I used to when I was younger.

D: What changed that?

L: Well, obviously, that slap on the wrist. Professor, or from the teachers and the, um...You know, that was a big mistake, I think, because...

D: With what? Who’s mistake?

L: Their mistake. Because of the fact that I would be trilingual and, you know, valued as three people, instead of only two. You know. I mean, because, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re valued, you’re not valued, but you are, you serve for two different cultures type thing. You know. You serve for the American culture, and you serve for the Spanish culture, ‘cause you can communicate with both. And if I knew how to speak German as well still, um, if my family would continue, would have continued to speak to me in German, then I would have learned, learned and known it very well by this time, and I could have communicated with other people, like in a third culture. And since, um, they told my family, my family didn’t want me to be different, they didn’t want me to, um, like, half stick out like a sore thumb or be retarded or anything in school, so they, um, they stopped speaking to me in German.

D: But they kept speaking to you in Spanish?

L: Hm. Hm. Because, um, just kinda force of habit, I guess.

D: Did the schools say anything about the Spanish?

L: Um. No. Because. See, the problem was I was speaking more. I would substitute more German words than Spanish words. And when we came back and they enrolled me back in school, that’s when I was having trouble kind of, you know, going from speaking, going from an all-German school and speaking German all day long, and Spanish, so I spoke German and Spanish over there, and a little bit of English to my grandpa, to coming to the States and then speaking all English, being in a all-Anglo-American, you know, all-Anglo school, speaking just English, and it was just hard, the transition. I mean, you know, if you go to Austria and you pick up an accent, you acquire this little accent, you come back here, you have to get kind of, you know, back into the mode of things. I mean, you don't just snap out of it and, oh, you know, “Okay, I’m fine now, and I’m not, I don’t have that accent that I picked up from, you know, from living there for a couple of years.”

D: You said you didn't want to sti...,that your family didn’t want you to stick out like a sore thumb.

L: Hm. Hm.

D: And you’ve also said that you, uh...Did you, did you ever feel like you were different?

L: Um. Well, when I went to...I didn’t ever feel like I was different, because when I went to Central America and when I lived there, I got put in a private school. And so I, um, they taught English. And so it was an English, an Americanized school, but...

D: You say they taught English or they taught in English?

L: No. They taught English. And so, it was, um, you had English, and you learned another foreign language, as well as they spoke in Spanish. So, it would be kinda like a junior high school here. You know how you take, you take your English classes. And so that that was just the regular classes; that was like Spanish classes. And then, you have your extra foreign language. But, then, on top of that, they taught you a main language, which was, which was English, like one of the big languages, ‘cause almost everybody knows a little bit of English over there in Central America.

D: What did you, what was the other language you studied?

L: Uh. German. Yeh. So that, because I knew that we were, um, we were gonna one day move back, uh, whatever, whatever.

D: Have you ever been back to Germany?

L: Nope! Never.

D: Yeh. I haven’t been there in twenty-one years. Um. But, uh, I'm trying to think. So, you...Where was this? What school system in did they ask you to stop speaking German?

L: Um. The Lakewood.

D: What was the name of the school?

L: Lakeview Elementary. And, um so I was really wronged...

D: Clover Park School District?

L: Hm. Hm. Clover Park School District. Yep. And that was really wrong. I mean, because I think, now, I think that they would encourage it a little bit more and try to work with you, maybe put you in an ESL class for a little while, and then get you out of there, and then get you back in the swing of things.

D: Have you ever thought about going back and completing learning German?

L: Um. Yeh. Everyone told me to do it, because, um, I can remember somewhat, some words and things like that. But, and, sometimes, when people are around me in conversation, I can pick up little bits and pieces, but I can’t, I speak German anymore.